Is the end near for Live Current Media?
It has already gone down as one of the biggest missed opportunities in the domain name world. Will it come to an end soon?
By all accounts, Live Current Media had one of the most valuable category-killer generic domain name portfolios. It still has many good domains. But poor execution has led the company to sell off many of these domain names to raise cash to survive. The company reported a loss of about $4 million for 2009, and cash is flying out the door.
To compensate, the company sold 10 domain names last year for a total of about $3.2 million, not including a deal to dispose of its cricket liabilities and sell Cricket.com. Still, the company had only $1.214 million in current assets as of December 31, 2009. Current liabilities were $2.431 million.
In its annual report, the company admits that its future as a going concern is in doubt. The company lists seven measures it is taking to keep afloat. Among these are deferring payments on an acquisition that never made sense, asking vendors to take payment in shares rather than cash, and continuing to sell domain names.
Unfortunately, you can’t sell off all of your assets as a way to finance a losing business. Eventually the company will run out of good domain names. Its perfume.com business isn’t enough to sustain it.
Someone should put Live Current out of its misery.
Anthony says
Interesting read Andrew …
thanks for this post.
Edwin Hayward says
The market values the entire company at about $3.6 million (if I multiply the number of shares by the current share price). Given what’s left in the domain portfolio, that might represent a juicy acquisition target for someone.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Edwin — don’t forget to add the debt though
Shorty says
I’d bet this mirrors many domainer’s finances right now.
The domainer numbers are dwindling as the companies servicing them are increasing…..it does not make sense.
Anthony says
True … What I found interesting about the annual report is how much they have in common with alot of other domainers.
Steve M says
… meaning a more accurate company name will son be: Dead Current Media
Andrew Allemann says
I guess the difference is domainers don’t have public annual reports to show how in debt they are 🙂
Anthony says
Steve … it just goes to show that its not always which domains you have but what you do with the domains you do have that makes the difference.
Jeff says
Ouch…financials ugly. What is even more concerning is the company only has cash and cash equivalents of $413k at the end of 2009 even after proceeds from domain name sales of $2.8 million during the same year (cash and cash equivalents amounted to $1.8 million at the end of 2008.)
It is only a matter of months until the company will not be able to make payroll. I sure hope they have management fees and salaries under a $1 million run rate going forward and I was shocked to see this line item at $3.583 million in 2009.
jeff says
goes to show domainers just because you own generic .com names, you need a business model and how are you going make money. to much focus is category names, type inn names, people leverage and borrow money to buy these generic category names.
business 101 folks, yes a name is part of the pie but so many more factors as well
Snoopy says
“goes to show domainers just because you own generic .com names, you need a business model and how are you going make money.”
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I think that was probably the problem, too many dud business models, a cricket site, a karate site, buying other developed sites that had nothing to do with the rest of the business, bloated staff numbers, taking on debt. I doubt this company really mirrors many domainers.
Andrew Allemann says
You’ll also notice one of the risk factors Live Current puts in their most recent annual report is new gTLDs. They say it’s possible these could erode the value of their .com’s. Of course, you generally throw in everything and the kitchen sink when you list risk factors.